After the encounter off the coast of Jayapura, the Red River Valley did not announce the battle situation immediately, in order to create the best opportunity for the returning fleet to destroy the enemy.

The Battle of the Strait of Malacca shocked the world and heralded the rise of a new maritime power.

Ultimately

Due to the frequent tricks of the Governor's Office of the Dutch East Indies, the Royal Navy task force was overly enlarged, and the capital ships such as the "Seven Provinces" and the "Dutch Giant" in the front positions of the confrontation in the Strait of Malacca were withdrawn, giving the returning fleet a good opportunity to annihilate the enemy.

As soon as the Jayapura Sea Encounter was announced, it once again caused an uproar in Europe and the United States.

There has been speculation about how the Dutch landing force will behave, and the waters off Shangri-La Island have also welcomed ships from Britain, France, Germany, the United States and the West, gathering here like vultures in the African savannah.

The Albatross, the Flamingo, the Pelican, and the Heron, four warships that had made great achievements, set sail again for the port of Jayapura to join up with other warships to form the new Shangri-La Combined Fleet.

The combined fleet is led by four Seagull II ocean-going cruisers and 12 Seagull I ships.

There was a small range of personnel adjustments, Geng Guigui stepped down as the captain of the Flamingo and was replaced by Zhu Qingxi, and the captain of the Pelican was officially appointed by Luo Yun.

End of January

The 1st Shangri-La Garrison Division was officially established, and the whole division was fully equipped with advanced weapons from Europe and the United States, especially the famous Miss Australia artillery, becoming the first army division in the world to be equipped with "Miss Australia".

War clouds and tensions were gathering in the western part of the East Indies.

This did not hinder the enthusiasm of high-ranking people of the army and navy from Britain, France, Germany, and other countries, and the only purpose was to witness and evaluate the "Miss Australia" artillery with their own eyes, and to discuss the issue of technology introduction and authorized production.

With the successive victories of the Queensland fleet, the situation in the Australian territory has undergone subtle changes, and Victoria and New South Wales have successively sent a message of reconciliation to Queensland, passing a temporary bill of the state parliament to unfreeze the circulation of Huitong gold tickets.

Plans for the southern extension of the coastal railway continue to move forward, with several rail line sites in New South Wales resuming work, while Victoria's construction sites are slow to move and continue to face bandit attacks as a stronghold of horse banditry.

This obviously could not satisfy the appetite of the Earl of Queensland, who only agreed to continue to buy wool from the south in the new shearing season, without changing the plan to suspend dividends for three years, which made the few white real power in the south bitter their teeth and seriously hurt their vital interests, in front of themselves.

Overall, the tension in Australia is gradually easing.

Perhaps seeing the power of the Earl of Queensland, he did not have instructions from London to try to avoid the intensification of the conflict.

The outcome of the Battle of Malacca apparently also alarmed the Manchu court, and asked for details through Gu Yanchuan, the governor of Beizhili, and Li Fushou wrote a letter to inform him, which is not listed here for the time being.

Queensland sent a new round of orders to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in the United Kingdom, a total of six Seagull II conversion orders, which were unsurprisingly rejected and only two orders were accepted.

The reason is that there is a lack of production capacity.

The trick suggested by who Fang asked for directions really worked, and the upper limit of London's tolerance for the Earl of Queensland was 6 Seagull 2 high-speed cruisers, and no more.

The displacement of the two Seagull II was further increased to 2,140 tons, the speed was reduced from 21 knots to 19 knots, and they were equipped with two knapsack 239 mm main guns, one in front and one in the rear, a total of 4 guns, and 8 95 mm Miss Australia secondary guns.

The Seagull II has been redesigned to increase armor protection, and a separate blast wall has been built for the secondary guns, properly spaced apart, to avoid being killed by one pot.

Early February

In Amsterdam

The Battle of the Strait of Malacca and the Encounter off the Sea of Jayapura were announced to the world, ushering in the turmoil of public sentiment within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Prime Minister of the Kingdom dissolved the cabinet and took responsibility for the defeat.

The 65-year-old King Willem III of the Netherlands appointed Lord Van Horn as Prime Minister and ordered him to form a new cabinet.

Early 1882

The Manchus gained extraterritoriality in Korea, and the United States promulgated a new Chinese Exclusion Act to further suppress and squeeze out Chinese workers in the United States.

In Shanghai

Great Northern Telegraph Co., Ltd. of Denmark opened the first artificial telephone exchange in Shanghai and successfully launched the wired telephone and telegraph business.

Subsequently, the Australian Telegraph Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the Red River Valley, opened long-distance cable telegraph services in Beiping and Guangzhou, and expanded its business to major coastal cities.

in Tianjin

On 17 January, the French minister Bao Hai arrived in Tianjin to discuss the Vietnamese issue with Prime Minister Li Hongzhang, proposed to discuss the border and commerce first, and demanded that China withdraw its troops from North Thi, Vietnam.

Because the butterfly from Australia flapped its wings, which was nine months earlier than in the original history, the French were even more impatient.

On the 18th, Li Hongzhang sent Ma Jianzhong to negotiate with Baohai to formulate three articles of the draft of the Yue Affairs:

1. Vietnam paid tribute to China, China withdrew its troops, and France declared that it had no intention of encowning Vietnam's land or undermining Vietnam's sovereignty.

2. Vietnam opened up Baosheng (base area of the Black Flag Army).

3. China and Vietnam are bounded by the Red River and allow the Red River to be navigable.

On 22 January, the Qing court approved this draft and agreed to the withdrawal of the Qing troops stationed in Beiqi.

In Paris

The Parliament of the French Third Republic passed the relevant appropriation bill, giving the green light to colonize Indochina, and a steady stream of French soldiers took ships to the colony of Saigon to prepare for the beginning of a new round of colonial war.

In Brisbane

In the splendid hall, Li Fushou had a pleasant conversation with Alfred Krupp of the German Krupp Company, a nobleman who was personally awarded the Order of the Red Eagle and the Knight's Cross by Kaiser Wilhelm I, and the forger of the German sword.

The two sides reached an agreement on the comprehensive introduction of Krupp artillery production technology in Australia, especially the 280 mm Krupp cannon, and Krupp obtained a patent for the production of artillery stationing and retreating aircraft, allowing it to be produced and sold in the German Empire.

Krupp will send senior artillery designers to assist the Deep Blue Alchemy Workshop in developing suitable garrison and retreat aircraft for various caliber guns, and obtain corresponding special production patents to equip the German Imperial Army and shore artillery units.

The two sides agreed that the Deep Blue Alchemy Workshop had patents for a series of artillery requisitioning and repositioning products, and that Krupp would pay the corresponding royalties for each set of repositioning aircraft produced and sold in the German Empire.

As a sign of cooperation, Krupp is helping the Red River Valley to establish its own military industry, including production lines for guns and ammunition, at a discounted price.

Britain, France, Italy, the United States and other countries directly received orders from Australia, all of which were 95mm Miss Australia guns at the beginning, and the number of orders ranged from hundreds to dozens, and the production capacity was arranged to 1884.

After the arrival of Krupp's advanced equipment and senior artillery designers, from 1883, the Red River Valley will successively launch reciprocating reciprocating aircraft suitable for heavy guns from 120 mm to 305 mm to meet the needs of European and American armies.

In doing so, it is using orders from Europe and the United States to feed Australia's artillery and military industry, and the Red River Valley abides by its duty and only becomes bigger and stronger in the field of artillery stationing and retreat, and does not endanger the interests of the original artillery manufacturers of Britain, France, and other countries, and both sides take what they need.

From the point of view of value, as an important core component, the value of the artillery stationed and retired aircraft accounts for 2/5 of the entire artillery, and the profit is attractive enough.

In the tug-of-war negotiations with the British representatives, Li Fushou, Earl of Queensland, finally stuck to his bottom line and left the right to produce artillery garrison products in Australia, because Australia itself is rich in coal and iron resources, coupled with abundant labor and artillery garrison patents, it has various conditions for the development of this industry.

This military industry alone will create tens of thousands of jobs, drive no less than 25,000 jobs in surrounding industries, and affect more than 100,000 people.

To this end, the Red River Valley has made concessions to the interests of other parties.

These include the import of two sets of steelmaking equipment and heavy plate production lines from the United Kingdom, the reconstruction and expansion of the Hongshan Shipyard using a full set of shipyard equipment imported from the United Kingdom, and the supply of high-quality coking coal to the United Kingdom at long-term preferential prices.

British businessmen were awarded big contracts, and the Red River Valley also benefited from this.

The scale of the industry has been further expanded, especially the coking industry, and the Songjiang Reservoir, which has a huge power generation capacity, will soon be completed and put into use, providing a reliable energy guarantee for the large-scale development of the coking industry in the Red River Valley, and has the basis for transporting a large amount of high-quality coking coal to the United Kingdom and even Europe.

Through conversations with British negotiators, Li Fushou discovered that he knew little about the artillery military industry of the Manchu Empire in today's era, and could even be said to be relatively advanced.

Thanks to the Westernization Movement, the Manchu Empire introduced a full set of British artillery production equipment and technology, and developed its own artillery industry.

Around the 60s of the 19th century

The Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau can produce various types of front-loading smoothbore guns from 12 to 32 pounds on its own. By 1878, it was able to produce the British Armstrong 40-pound steel rifled gun, using a fairly advanced hot sleeve process.

By 1880

The Gangnam Manufacturing Bureau has the capacity to produce 120-pound Armstrong heavy guns, with a caliber of 150 mm cannons, and the total weight of the guns reached 4.5 tons.

In the production workshop of Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, the 203 mm caliber Armstrong cannon authorized by the United Kingdom is being produced, and this batch of orders has reached a total of 160 units, and there will be more demand in the future.

Now British engineers are in the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, instructing it to imitate the British Armstrong 12-inch heavy gun, which is a giant gun with a caliber of 305 mm, which is an absolute big killer.

The cannon weighs 58.5 tons and fires about 300 kilograms of shells, and can fire grenades, shrapnel and shotguns in addition to special standard ammunition, with a range of up to 12 kilometers.

The power of this giant cannon is very huge, and it can easily penetrate 400 mm thick ironclad within the effective range, even if it is a 10,000-ton steam-ironclad battleship, it can also penetrate with a single shot.

It is also one of the most advanced artillery pieces in the world.